The Resurrection File (42 page)

Once they were below deck Will was shoved into a small cabin. In that room there was another man, a guard, who was standing and holding a machine gun. Next to him was another man, sitting in a comfortable chair.

The lookout grabbed Will by his hair and forced him down to a kneeling position.

“I am going to take your blindfold off, American infidel. You may not speak until you are spoken to. Do you understand?” the lookout shouted into Will's ear. Will nodded.

Then his blindfold was taken off, as he remained kneeling with his hands tied behind his back.

There was a round porthole in the cabin, and the light streaming into the ship's cramped cabin through that window was painfully bright to Will, who had been blindfolded for nearly twelve hours.

Will squinted through the glare. To his left, by the window, he noticed an Arab-appearing man holding a machine gun. He looked to his right and saw the man who had apparently brought him there—also armed.

Then, as his eyes began to adjust to the light, he looked straight ahead, and saw a man sitting directly in front of him.

Still squinting a little, Will looked at the man in the chair. This man was wearing a black turban and a brown robe. His beard was long and black, reaching down to the middle of his chest. He was wearing tinted sunglasses. The man removed them, revealing eyes that were dark, that seemed lifeless. His face was gaunt and furrowed. This man said nothing at first. But as Will observed him he knew the face was familiar. He had seen this man before. On the cover of a news magazine—perhaps on the covers of several magazines. On television news reports.

Then Will Chambers realized that he was in the presence of the most hunted and feared terrorist in the world.

He was kneeling in front of Abdul el Alibahd.

There was more silence. Then Alibahd began coughing violently and took out a handkerchief—he continued gagging, and then he coughed something into the handkerchief. After another minute of silence, Alibahd, having struggled to catch his breath, began to speak.

“Do you know why you are here?”

“No.”

“I will tell you. You are here because you are going to…” Alibahd searched for the words, “…going to run an
errand
for me. You are my errand
man. Now, do you have questions for me? Abdul el Alibahd will answer them.”

Will thought for a minute. Then he asked a question.

“Did you kill Clarence—my dog? And burn down my house?”

Alibahd gave Will a quizzical look. The gunman to his right bent over and explained something in a low voice.

“I did not kill your dog,” Alibahd said. “I don't trifle with dogs. I bring down the nations. I strike terror into the hearts of the murderous oppressors. And I kill those who are enemies of Islam. I kill to show the world that the enemies of Allah are as nothing.”

Then Alibahd paused and smiled broadly, revealing stained teeth. He continued and said, “The only dogs I kill are the kind that wear shoes, and business suits, and work on Wall Street.”

With that, his two armed guards burst into laughter, and raised their guns over their heads and waved them. Will's stomach churned, knowing that he was sitting a foot away from the barbarian who had slaughtered innocent people in front of the New York Stock Exchange.

“So you want to know about your house? You want to know about your dog? Then you should talk to the Great Satan! He is the one who did that. We don't bother with setting fires and shooting dogs. That is the coward's work of the Great Satan.”

“Who is the ‘Great Satan'?” Will asked.

“You will meet him. And you will deliver to him a message from me. Because I, Abdul el Alibahd, will give you, the little errand man, a message.”

Then Alibahd leaned forward to stare Will in the eye. As he did, Will suddenly understood that he was not going to die—at least not right then. This terrorist had some strange job for him to do. And until the “errand” was run, he was apparently of some value to Alibahd.

“You must go immediately to the house of the Great Satan. And then tell him my message.”

“Why me?” Will asked.

“Because he knows you, Mr. Chambers. He knows who you are. And he knows me. And when you show up at his house, and you give him my message, then he will know that this message truly came from me, Abdul el Alibahd. Now here is the message.

“You will tell him that I know he is the Great Satan. I know of the agreement he is making with OPEC, and what he wants to do together with Saudi Petrol Company. Tell him I also know he is no true follower of Allah. I know how he tries to play the harlot between the Christian infidels and the believers of Islam, to destroy the purity of Islam. If he does not
withdraw all of his evil plans, my followers will visit him in the night. First they will kill his bodyguards. And then they will come to him with their long, sharp knives. And all night they will cut him apart, piece by piece, while he still lives. And the last thing they will cut out of him will be his heart. And then they will bring his heart to me.”

Will was feeling faint after hours without food. “Am I supposed to recite this message exactly?”

“Yes,” Alibahd responded. Then he handed Will a script of the message he had expounded.

“We did this on our laptop computer. We all have laptop computers. And we are on the Web. We are part of e-commerce. We are high-tech. Now, Mr. Chambers, memorize what is on this paper.”

As one of the guards reached over to pull Will to his feet, Alibahd motioned for him to wait.

“You must deliver this message. Because if you don't, I know where to find those you love. I know where they live. My followers will seek them out, and they will die very bad deaths. There is a girl. A black-haired girl. A singer. You care for her. And her father. And her sick mother. And you have an uncle and an aunt, in…”

One of the gunmen whispered in his ear.

“…in North Carolina. We will find them all, and it will be most unhappy for them.”

“One more question,” Will asked, before being led away. “What happens to me after I deliver the message to this ‘Great Satan'? Will I be free then?”

“You will be free to go, and if you survive you can tell the press, tell the FBI, tell anyone, that you met with Abdul el Alibahd—that Abdul el Alibahd can catch anyone he wants, but they still cannot catch him!” the terrorist responded. And then, after a moment's reflection, he added, “but, I think when the Great Satan hears your message, he will be angry, and he will have his men kill you then, anyway!”

At that, all three of the men started laughing. Alibahd laughed until he began coughing and choking, and then he covered his mouth with the handkerchief. As Will Chambers was led out of the ship's cabin he could hear Alibahd back in the room, still gagging and gasping for air.

“Just keep choking,” Will muttered under his breath as they shoved him up the metal stairs.

52

N
IGHT WOULD SOON FALL ON THE
L
AS
V
EGAS STRIP
. The shimmering, glittering arcades of neon of casinos and hotels bathed the streets with otherworldly light. The pale moon was out, even though the sun had not fully set, and the desert was spectacular with color.

Fifteen miles outside of Las Vegas, in the Nevada desert, the attendant running the dilapidated “Last Chance Gas & Go” mart was watching television from the cracked leather seat of his wooden swivel chair.

From somewhere above him, the attendant heard a roaring noise. He turned in his chair, looking through the front door that had been jammed open for ventilation, and saw the dust swirling around outside by the single gas pump.

He turned down the television as the roar got louder. The dust and sand outside were now swirling like a miniature cyclone.

As he ran to the door the roaring was growing distant. He looked out onto the highway that passed in front of his gas station. He saw Will Chambers, lying facedown on the shoulder of the road.

Will slowly and stiffly rose to his feet. His suit and shirt were covered with dust. His tie, which had been loosened at the collar, was now dangling from his neck like a Boy Scout's kerchief. There was a bruise on his left cheekbone.

The attendant scampered across the road to Will, and then looked up at the sky at a helicopter that was disappearing.

“You g-g-got here from that helicopter?” the man asked in a stutter.

Will brushed himself off, and shook the sand out of his hair. “Yeah, that's right. I thought I'd just drop in,” Will said, momentarily feeling a sense of exuberance at being free from his captors.

The attendant was still staring at Will as he made his way into the little convenience store.

“Do you have anything to drink that's cold? Anything to eat? Any sandwiches? I'm starving,” Will said as he looked around the little store.

“Soda and b-b-beer is over there. I used to be able to make chili dogs on the r-r-…the rotisserie here, but it ain't working no more.”

After riffling through his pockets Will pulled out some dollar bills and laid them on the table. Then he limped over to the cooler and pulled out two sodas, and grabbed a handful of candy bars and a few bags of corn curls.

There was a wooden chair with a little desktop by the door; it looked like it had once belonged in a school building. Will sat down in the chair with his load of junk food and started eating, intermittently taking large gulps from the soda can.

“Where am I?” Will asked.

The attendant looked at him quizzically for a few seconds.

“Nevada. Just outside V-V-Vegas.”

Will polished off all of the corn curls, the candy bars, and the two sodas while the attendant watched.

Then the attendant cautiously asked, “You ain't with
him,
are you?”

“Who?”

“Him,” the attendant repeated, and then pointed across the road to what looked like an entrance to someone's property. To the side of the entrance, there was a white stone pillar that had the words “Private Property—No Trespassing” printed on it in gold letters highlighted with black. The road beyond the sign seemed to disappear into the desert hills.

“What's that lead to?”

“That belongs to
him
. Ain't you ever heard of
U-t-t-topia?
That's where that road goes.”

“Utopia?”

“Yeah. That's what they c-c-c-call the c-c-castle of Warren Mullburn. One of the world's richest men. You ain't with him?”

“No,” Will replied. “But I think I'm supposed to pay him a visit.”

“He's a mean one. His g-g-goons—his bodyguards, they sometimes come here for gas. Push me around. Make fun of my stutter. Just 'cause I stutter don't mean that I'm d-d-d-dumb.”

“I'm sorry,” Will said.

“I don't think he likes having neighbors. There's something real b-b-bad about him. The county cops don't like him neither. They've told me. I'd like to see him get what's coming to him—j-j-just once.”

Will thought back to Abdul el Alibahd's parting words to him on the freighter. He knew he had no choice but to deliver the terrorist's message to Mullburn. It was clear now that the billionaire was the “Great Satan” of
Alibahd's rantings. But it was also clear that Mullburn was a dangerous man. If an international terrorist like Alibahd thought Mullburn had killer instincts, Will wasn't going to argue the point.

Somehow, Will had to deliver Alibahd's threat to Warren Mullburn and then get out alive. Will thrust his hand in his jacket pocket. He fingered the black felt-tipped pen that was still there.

“Where's your bathroom?” Will asked.

The attendant motioned to the outside of the building. Will took the key and disappeared.

After Will had cleaned himself up and was through in the men's room, he came around to the door again.

“Hey! You're going to have to check that bathroom right away!” Will yelled through the entrance.

Then he quickly crossed the highway and started up the desert road marked by the sign, “Private Property—No Trespassing.”

53

W
ILL HAD BEEN WALKING FOR ABOUT FIVE MINUTES
in the dusky half-light of sunset, along the road that wound through the brush and barren desert hills. Then he heard the sound of a vehicle approaching. A tan Land Rover topped a small hill in the distance, approaching fast with headlights and spotlights on.

When the vehicle was nearly even with Will, it skidded to a stop, sending small stones and sand flying.

Two burly men, in matching golf shirts and tan pants, and wearing ultralight headsets, got out. One of the men grabbed Will and threw him to the ground.

“You are trespassing, mister!” he yelled, frisking Will while he was lying in the dirt.

“I have to see Warren Mullburn.”

“Nobody sees Mr. Mullburn.”